2025-03-07 12:08
Agrees deal top buys 100% of Sval from HitecVision DNO to pay $450 million in cash Transaction, including debt, valued at $1.6 billion DNO shares up 7% Accelerates DNO pivot to back to North Sea OSLO, March 7 (Reuters) - Norwegian oil company DNO (DNO.OL) , opens new tab has agreed to buy rival Sval Energi from private equity group HitecVision in a deal valued at $1.6 billion, it said on Friday, marking further consolidation among North Sea oil and gas producers. The purchase of the cash-generating Sval Energy portfolio could be followed by acquisitions of other assets in Norway and elsewhere to fulfil DNO's growth ambitions, Executive Chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani said on a call with analysts. The transaction, involving a $450 million cash payment for 100% Sval's shares plus assumption of debt, accelerates DNO's pivot back to its North Sea roots after decades of exploration and production in the Middle East. Shares in Oslo-listed DNO were up 6.9% by 1125 GMT, outperforming a 0.3% drop in the wider European oil and gas index (.SXEP) , opens new tab, bringing the company's year-to-date gain to 15%. The deal will quadruple DNO's North Sea production to about 80,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) and lift its total output to around 140,000 boepd based on pro-forma 2024 data, it said. DNO's remaining production comes primarily from two fields in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where the company has been forced to sell oil at a discount owing to a legal dispute over the shutdown of an export pipeline to Turkey in 2022. The Iraqi federal government, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the international oil companies operating in Kurdistan are discussing a potential resumption of pipeline exports. But while DNO's cash flow would rise, its leverage was also set to increase significantly and the Kurdish exposure adds uncertainty, DNB Markets said in a note, adding that a spin-off could be one way to mitigate the risk. "We are not turning away from Kurdistan, we are just developing the North Sea business to be on par with Kurdistan," said DNO Managing Director Christopher Spencer. Sval holds stakes in 16 fields off the Norwegian coast, including in ConocoPhillips-operated (COP.N) , opens new tab Ekofisk, with net total production of 64,100 boepd in 2024, split roughly equally between liquids and gas. The acquisition will be financed with existing cash and other debt financing, DNO added. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-group-dno-buy-sval-energi-16-bln-deal-boosting-north-sea-assets-2025-03-07/
2025-03-07 12:01
LONDON, March 7 (Reuters) - Hedge fund stock pickers and multi-strategy funds gave up around half their average yearly gains in Thursday's tech-driven equity selloff, a note by Goldman Sachs showed (GS.N) , opens new tab. Wall Street shares have been hit this week by a darkening U.S. economic outlook uncertainty over President Donald Trump's tariff policies, with the Nasdaq (.IXIC) , opens new tab on Thursday confirming a correction since peaking in December. Stock plunges were felt acutely in the parts of the markets where hedge funds held long bets such as on technology, media and telecommunications companies. Global hedge funds were mostly long these stocks coming into this week, said a separate note from JPMorgan on Wednesday. A long position expects an asset value to rise whereas a short bet hopes it will decline. Technology (.SPLRCT) , opens new tab is the second worst-performing S&P 500 (.SPX) , opens new tab sector year-to-date with about an 8% loss, after consumer discretionary (.SPLRCD) , opens new tab stocks which have tumbled just over 9%. Hedge funds were caught in crowded trades that sold off leaving those which pick stocks with a 1% average return on the year so far, said the Goldman Sachs note sent to clients on Thursday and seen by Reuters on Friday. U.S. stock pickers finished down 1.4% on Thursday, taking their yearly performance to negative 0.5% for 2025, so far, the note said. Hedge funds that employ different kinds of trading strategies also had "a challenging day," said the Goldman note. This kind of hedge fund which for the last three years has produced consistently positive returns has this year lost money 18 out of 29 days since January 27, said Goldman. This negative investment streak was one of the worst performances for this kind of hedge fund that the bank had ever seen, said Goldman. Multi-strategy hedge funds are designed to offset the losses of one strategy with another. February saw some of the biggest of these funds produce mixed returns so far this year, with Millennium Management down 1.3% in February taking their returns on the year so far to a negative 0.8%, said sources with knowledge of the matter. Bloomberg first reported the results. D.E. Shaw's Oculus Fund returned a negative 4.3% taking their year to a negative 2.8% so far, a source said. D.E. Shaw declined to comment. Macro funds fared better. Hedge fund Rokos Capital Management's return on investment was down 0.29% during February to the February 21 but was up 0.57% for 2025 so far, said the source. Rokos declined to comment. British financier Andrew Law's secretive macro fund Caxton returned 4% in February adding gains to a positive year so far, up 7%, said another source with knowledge of the matter on Friday. Caxton did not immediately respond to several requests for comment. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/wealth/hedge-flow-hedge-funds-give-up-half-2025-gains-challenging-markets-says-goldman-2025-03-07/
2025-03-07 11:59
TSX ends up 0.7% at 24,758.76 Energy gains 2.4% as oil settles up 1% MDA Space jumps 17.7% Canada adds fewer jobs than expected March 7 (Reuters) - Canada's main stock index clawed back some of its weekly decline on Friday as higher oil prices boosted energy shares, with the market rallying despite domestic jobs data that undershot expectations and the latest U.S. tariff threat. The Toronto Stock Exchange's S&P/TSX composite index (.GSPTSE) , opens new tab ended up 174.72 points, or 0.7%, at 24,758.76. For the week, the index was down 2.5%, its biggest weekly decline since December. U.S. President Donald Trump railed against what he called tremendously high Canadian tariffs on dairy and lumber, and said his administration could impose reciprocal tariffs on Canadian products as early as Friday. "It's a constant barrage of tariff headlines," said Angelo Kourkafas, a senior investment strategist at Edward Jones. "We have this looming uncertainty of what's going to be the impact on the labor market for tariffs but likely today's data solidifies an expectation that we are going to see the Bank of Canada cut rates next week." Canada's unemployment rate held steady at 6.6% in February but new job additions were only marginally up, falling well short of the 20,000 increase that analysts had forecast. Investors see a 75% chance the Bank of Canada will cut its benchmark interest rate a further 25 basis points on March 12, after lowering the rate in January to 3%. U.S. job growth picked up in February, but cracks are emerging in the once-resilient labor market amid rising uncertainty over trade policy and deep federal government spending cuts. The energy sector rose 2.4% as the price of oil recouped some recent declines. U.S. crude oil futures settled 1% higher at $67.04 a barrel. Utilities added 1.5% as bond yields fell and heavily weighted financials ended 0.6% higher. Shares of MDA Space Ltd (MDA.TO) , opens new tab jumped 17.7% after the space technology company forecast first-quarter revenue above estimates. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/tsx-futures-flat-index-set-worst-week-six-months-2025-03-07/
2025-03-07 11:55
JOHANNESBURG, March 7 (Reuters) - South African state power utility Eskom said on Friday that it would implement "Stage 3" scheduled power cuts until Monday after losing 2,700 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity over the past 14 hours. The power cuts will be implemented from 1400 local time (1200 GMT) on Friday until Monday at 0500 (0300 GMT), the company said in a statement. The stages of power cuts are an incremental system where Stage 1 sees up to 1,000 MW cut from the system, with Stage 6 the highest implemented to date. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-eskom-implement-stage-3-power-cuts-2025-03-07/
2025-03-07 11:38
KYIV, March 7 (Reuters) - Ukrainian oil and gas company Naftogaz and Polish energy group Orlen (PKN.WA) , opens new tab signed an agreement on Friday to cooperate in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) sector and help Kyiv to diversify its gas supplies, the companies said. They also agreed on a contract to supply 100 million cubic metres of natural gas to Ukraine, the statement said. "Our relationship will be based on commercial terms, but securing an additional source of gas is vital for Ukraine also from the point of view of its security," said Robert Soszyński, Orlen's Vice president. Ukraine's energy sector has been under attack since Russia's invasion in February 2022. So far this year the Russian forces have stepped up strikes on Ukrainian gas production and transit facilities. The government plans to import up to 800 million cubic metres of gas from Europe to compensate for about 40% drop in production following the Russian strikes. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/ukraines-naftogaz-polands-orlen-cooperate-lng-2025-03-07/
2025-03-07 11:16
OPEC+ has decided to hike output from April Novak: OPEC+ may reverse the hike decision after April Kazakhstan says it will cut oil production in next months CPC exports to be reduced as well MOSCOW/ALMATY/DUBAI March 7 (Reuters) - Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday that the OPEC+ group agreed to start increasing oil production from April, but could reverse the decision afterwards if there are market imbalances. Speaking at an online briefing almost simultaneously with Novak, officials from Kazakhstan, which has frequently exceeded the OPEC+ production quotas, pledged to cut output in March, April and May. Novak also said Russia produced less oil in February than the quota it agreed with the OPEC+ group, which includes the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies. Eight OPEC+ members taking part in OPEC+'s most recent layer of output cuts held a virtual meeting on Monday and agreed to proceed with the April increase, the first by the group since 2022. The increase is 138,000 barrels per day, according to Reuters calculations. Novak told reporters that the group will go ahead with the April increase, but after that it may consider other steps. "If there is an imbalance in the market, we can always play in the other direction," he said. Global oil prices rose more than $1 a barrel after his comments. KAZAKHSTAN Industry sources told Reuters that record output from Kazakhstan helped sway this week's OPEC+ decision. The world's largest landlocked country has been producing at a record high, and well above its quota, as U.S. oil major Chevron (CVX.N) , opens new tab expands output at the largest Kazakh oilfield, Tengiz. Several other members of the group, including top producer Saudi Arabia, were angered by the rising output from Kazakhstan, three OPEC+ sources told Reuters. Kazakhstan's Energy Minister Almassadam Satkaliyev told an online briefing of reporters and analysts that the country was producing oil above quota, but the government had tasked oil majors to cut production. His deputy, Alibek Zhamauov, said the country will cut oil production in March, April and May, as well as exports via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), its main exporting route. Kazakhstan's OEPC+ production quota is set at 1.468 million barrels per day (bpd). "In March, we will strive to achieve the OPEC+ quota of about 1.5 million bpd," he said. Kazakhstan raised crude and gas condensate output in February to a record high of 2.12 million bpd. A pumping station on the Russian stretch of the CPC pipeline was hit by a Ukrainian drone last month. There have been conflicting reports about the scale of the damage and its impact on exports. Zhamauov said CPC has embarked on repair works and while exports have been steady, they will decrease in March. He didn't specify if the cuts will be due to the aftermath of the drone strike or output reduction. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russias-novak-says-opec-may-reverse-oil-output-hike-after-april-if-needed-2025-03-07/
